


Little Sacrifices (still hurt)

by KatieBethBug



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alistair is just now 20 and Eda is only 22, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I'm 22, Nothing Sexual, The Dark Ritual, also like they're such babies, but like soft gentle angst, comfortable intimacy, it would be hell to go through this, like its talking about feeling dirty after sex but not in a slut-shaming way, they just both really didn't want to do what had to be done, they're both nude but its totally unscandalous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26788546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieBethBug/pseuds/KatieBethBug
Summary: On the eve of the Battle of Denerim, Eda and Alistair have made the hardest decision of their life; to let Morrigan do as she pleased. The wardens are happy to be assured survival, but there are other implications. The wardens are young and have fully dedicated themselves to each other, so how can such a ritual disrupt their feelings about themselves and their lover?
Relationships: Alistair/Amell (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Amell (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Alistair/Warden (Dragon Age)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: The Maker's Breath Canon Universe





	Little Sacrifices (still hurt)

Eda laid flat on her back on the beautiful four-poster bed feeling anything but comforted by the down pillows below her head. She had taken off her pauldrons and capelet as well as her corset and stockings. Yet, she remained in the shift dress that comprised the base of her mage robes. Her amber eyes sought answers from the canopy above her head that could only come from woman in the next room and time.

No sounds had come out of the bedroom across the hall. Not that she had necessarily expected them; people tended to remain quiet unless they were in the thralls of pure pleasure or in distress. She deeply hoped that neither of those situations would be the case. On one hand, she knew Alistair would be gentle and had not gone into the arrangement with anything similar to an air of excitement or happiness. He, like she, had seen that the ritual would be a necessity and nothing beyond that. On the other hand, a small twinge of jealousy kept burbling up inside her chest. She had tried to get Morrigan to acquiesce and teach her the ritual. Eda and Alistair would have been much more joyful tonight if they were conceiving a child of their own, even if it would hold the soul of an old god and be brought into this world through a ritual that was nothing short of blood magic.

But the blood magic, Alistair had been amenable to. He had not liked it; that much was obvious. But Eda knew her lover would do what was needed to keep the both of them alive even as they slayed the archdemon. It was the whole ordeal with Morrigan that Alistair had nearly said no to.

He had told her, as they lay together in her tent after their first night together, that he never wanted to sleep with anyone else his whole life. At the time, Eda thought this a bit naïve, but she felt the same way. A foolish kind of young love, Wynne had said, and Eda had almost agreed. But, no, what she and Alistair had was something real, as young and foolish as it might be.

And Eda had asked him to do the unthinkable: lay with Morrigan and participate in blood magic. She was ashamed, but she could live with shame. She would not live without him, and he, similarly, had said that he would not live without her. It seemed their only option, so, Eda lay on the bed and listened.

She sat up, resting on her elbows, as she heard a muttering of low voices in the other room before the wooden door swung open and snapped shut and the door to the room where Eda was opened. Alistair stood in the doorway, hair tousled, exposed chest and shoulders as red as the dark blush across his cheeks and ears, and his trousers only half laced. Eda smiled sympathetically at him, “Is it over?”

He exhaled deeply and crossed the room to the bathtub she had filled while he was with Morrigan. He nodded, slipping his pants down and sitting in the stone-hewn bath. He splashed the water up against his face. “I feel disgusting.”

Eda stood from the bed and knelt behind the tub, taking a cloth that had been laid on the dresser for such an occasion. She dipped it into the water, took hold of the soap bar, rubbed the two together, and began to wash Alistair’s neck and shoulders. He leaned into her touch. She paused briefly in her ministrations and kissed his hair, “Thank you. I’m so sorry.”

He sighed again, content to just feel her at his back. She was careful to clean in every wrinkle and divot, gentler around the scabbed wounds he had received in Howe’s estate and tougher against the line of grime along his neck where his armour ended. It had been a while since any of them were able to get a proper bath. When she finished his back, Eda moved around to his front, pulling the shift over her head and removing her underclothes. He let out a half-hearted chuckle, “Eda, I don’t think I can=”

“I’m not asking you to. I just want to keep my clothes dry.” She settled herself between his legs and began to sponge at his chest and upper arms. She brought the cloth up to wash his face and cupped his cheek in her hand, the cotton resting between her palm and his face. “You shouldn’t feel dirty, Alistair. You saved both our lives tonight with a mere half hour of self-loathing.” He looked away from her. “Shame and hatred will do you no good.”

His voice was dark when he spoke, “I only hope it was worth it.”

She leaned closer in, rising onto her knees in the water, and brushed a kiss across his forehead, “If we survive tomorrow, anything we have ever done will be worth it.”

“You feel no guilt or shame over any of it?”

Eda thought about betraying Jowan to Irving, of surviving Ostagar when few others did, of doing so little to help the people of Lothering, of allowing Lady Isolde to die to save her son, of accidentally invoking the Rite of Annulment, and certainly of what she had asked Alistair to do. She nodded, “I feel guilt and shame over a lot of what I’ve done. But none of that helps. Especially on the eve of the battle with the archdemon.” She resumed washing her lover, working her way down his muscular frame. “But you can’t blame yourself in any way.”

He raised a brow, “Of course I can. I’m the one who slept with her, Eda.” His mouth was set in a hard line, and he sucked at his teeth as he would when he was in pain. Eda, stitching up his gashes and cleaning all manner of his wounds, knew that expression well. She had never seen it with such a dark layer of self-hatred clouding his gaze.

She stopped and looked directly into his eyes, “You can hate Morrigan; she’s the one who suggested it. You can hate me; I’m the one who asked you to do it. You can hate the archdemon; it is his fault that it was necessary. But, Alistair, you are not allowed to hate yourself about this.”

He shook his head, “I don’t hate you. You knew what was best.”

A small smile pulled at her lips, “If I knew what was best, then why do you hate yourself for doing it?”

“Because you’re the only woman I ever wanted to see that way,” he gestured to her in front of him, “ _this_ way. And I wanted you to be the only woman who got to see me like _this_.” He gestured to his nude body.

“And I love you so much for that.”

“But now I’ve seen Morrigan,” he gave an involuntary shudder, “and she’s seen me. It isn’t fair to you.”

She brushed her wet fingers through his hair, “Would you like me to go across the room and reveal myself to Morrigan to make it even?”

That drew a small, surprised chuckle from him, “No, I suppose not.”

She let an easy grin slip onto her lips, “Then I guess we will have to make do with what we have.” She drew the soap bar along his scalp and massaged the roots of his hair. In a soft voice, she said, “We were always broken people, Alistair.” He hummed in agreement, letting his eyes drift closed as she washed his hair. “You’re no more broken tonight than you were this morning, and neither am I.” She rinsed her hands in the now sudsy water. She cupped her hands together, scooped up some water, and dumped it over his head to rinse his hair. She repeated this process until no more soap suds remained and his hair looked more like a dusty brown than its typical honey blonde. “Now,” she kissed his cheek, rubbing her hands against his gooseflesh-covered shoulders, “you should get dry. I’ll finish up in here and come to bed in a moment.”

He leaned forward to press a chaste kiss against her lips before standing from the tub and wrapping himself in a towel. He turned back to her, “Eda, thank you.” She smiled warmly at him. “I hate that it had to be this way, but you’re right, I would do anything to keep you safe.”

She took his hand in hers, “And I would do the same for you.”


End file.
